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Which GMAT Study Schedule Should I Follow?

At Magoosh, we have many study schedules to help you prepare for the GMAT -- it can be tough to determine which one's right for you! To help you make that choice, you'll want to answer the following questions:

How long do I have to prepare before my GMAT?

If it's one month or less, you should use either our daily or weekly 1-month study schedule. If you have 3-5 hours per day to study and would like a lot of structure in your prep, you should choose our daily version. If you're limited in the amount of time you have to study per week and just need a basic framework for how to prepare, you should choose the weekly version.

If you have six months or more to prepare, you'll want to use our 6-month study schedule. It's arranged into weekly assignments, so you'll not only have flexibility as to when you do each week's work, if you have to be away from the internet for a week, you can do that and still finish the plan at the end of six months.

If you have three months to prep and want to use one of our three-month plans, you'll want to keep reading for more advice. :-)

Which three-month plan is right for me?

We have four three-month study plans, each with a different focus. We've developed a short diagnostic test (it will take you no longer than an hour) to assist you in choosing a plan that fits your current level of abilities, so you should take that first!

Next, follow the recommendations based on the number of questions you got right in the quantitative and verbal diagnostics (you should get an email with your score soon after you finish each test). Keep in mind that the recommendations are just those: they're merely suggestions to help you pick the best plan for you.

However, the one thing you should not assume is that following the plan for advanced students will lead you to a higher score than the plan for beginners. The plan for advanced students includes very few of our video lessons, so if you're just beginning your GMAT prep, it will be much more beneficial for you to follow the plan for beginners, since you will need the review of GMAT-specific concepts to help you reach your target score! Many students have gotten great scores following our beginners plan, so don't think you're putting a cap on your score by following it: the "beginners" label only applies to how long you've been prepping for your GMAT, and not your overall potential!

Further, the biggest difference between our math-focused and verbal-focused study plans is that the math-focused study plan contains none of our verbal or AWA lessons, and our verbal-focused study plan contains very few of our math lessons. If the diagnostic pointed you towards the math-focused or verbal-focused study plans, but you still think you need significant review regarding both math and verbal, don't be afraid to choose the plan for beginners! As I said earlier, many students have used it to get great scores.

Lastly, don't be afraid to adapt any of our schedules to your needs! The schedules are merely suggestions, and the person who knows best about what is necessary for his or her GMAT success is you. So if you decide, for example, you need more math or verbal problems than our plan suggests in a given week, go for it! Our schedules are merely there to give you the structure to succeed on test day.